Hero: Revisiting Subhash Ghai's flamboyant take on romance

Hero: Revisiting Subhash Ghai's flamboyant take on romance

Today, we look back at Subhash Ghai's 1983 blockbuster Hero that launched two relative newcomers into overnight stardom.

No barrier of society, clans, class or creed can stop two people from falling in love.

Ah, if it isn't the quintessential Bollywood fantasy!

Judge it for all you want, but this chaotic expression of creative free will has proved its worth in gold for the best (and worst) of filmmakers.

And so this week I decode the merits (and gaffes) of the classic theme retold through Subhash Ghai’s flamboyant filmmaking in 1983’s box office smash, Hero, which made stars out of Jackie Shroff and Meenakshi Seshadri after lacklustre beginnings (in Swami Dada and Painter Babu respectively) and conferred the rhyme Ding Dong O Baby Sing-a-Song (featuring the director in a blink and miss cameo) an epic stature.

Interestingly, the love story owes part of its existence to Kamal Haasan.

Sick and tired of chasing the Southern Superstar for dates, Ghai decided to scrap the project and came up with idea of Hero.

Hero's charm lies in its rawness and nostalgia

Despite the excesses and errors, Hero’s charm lies in its rawness and nostalgia.

In the age of touch phones with gazillion apps, it’s tickling to see goondas lug around a bulky tape recorder to document evidence, a sinister looking Shakti Kapoor unleashes a VHS tape with pre-recorded footage of a wounded Jackie in the hospital to torment Meenakshi and even the baritone proud Amrish Puri has to holler out his devious schemes to be heard over a long distance phone call.

There’s nothing prepped up about Jackie and Meenakshi’s presence or personality -- what you see is what you get. It’s this unfeigned freshness that makes their flaws excusable.

Though a modestly budgeted romance when compared to Ghai’s lavishly mounted multi-starrers, Hero makes up for the absence of fancy production values with its striking, nature-embracing outdoors. (With Karz not doing too well, Ghai wasn't able to gather huge finance and turned producer with this film.)

Along with his motorcyclist gang, he’s assigned by an imprisoned Pasha to intimidate an honest albeit arrogant retired cop (Shammi Kapoor essaying the obstinate obstacle both here and 1983’s other release -- Betaab) and kidnap his daughter Radha (Meenakshi Seshadri) in retaliation to his sentence.

Only Radha, the perennially gullible 1980s heroine, is easily duped into believing her captors are covert police officers.

So instead of the mandatory ‘bachao,’ she breaks into a gorgeous Laxmikant-Pyarelal melody, Nindiya Se Jaagi Bahaar in Lata Mangeshkar’s faultless rendition.

It’s not hard to see why Ghai picked Meenakshi for the part.

He was won over by the former Miss India’s traditional face and classical dancing prowess, which is amply displayed (in Saroj Khan’s intricate steps) at every opportunity (even atop a giant tabla).

When she discovers the truth about his identity, her shock lasts for not more than ten seconds. What matters to Radha is Jaikishen>Jackie and he display this golden side to everybody (basically Shammi Kapoor).

The actor, who worked with Ghai previously on Vidhaata, is priceless in the scene where Meenakshi delivers an emotionally charged dialogue, "Warna mein kunwari hi vidhwa ho jaaongi" and a stunned Sanjeev Kumar spontaneously falls off the chair.

The memorable soundtrack

While Jackie/Jaikishen is locked up in prison for two years, enters Prince Charmless (Shakti Kapoor is reliably vile, especially in one disturbingly violent stabbing scene) as Radha’s fill-in fiancé till he is released.

Ghai grabs the occasion to introduce songstress Reshma’s achingly beautiful Lambi Judaai, a song now synonymous with lovers forced to stay apart.

The erstwhile showman heard the Pakistan folk singer perform at Raj Kapoor’s private party and was mesmerised by her rendition.

His keen ear for music helps him extract lilting tunes like Tu Mera Jaanu Hai, Pyaar Karnewale Kabhi Darte Nahi and Mohabbat Yeh Mohabbat (besides the one I mentioned earlier) from his then regulars Laxmikant-Pyarelal against Anand Bakshi’s snappy lyrics.

The soundtrack of Hero -- apart from making some sturdy use of Manhar Udhas -- lends Jackie and Radha’s romance heft and intensity.